ABSTRACT
The representation of perpetrators in theatrical performance, as well as the reception of such performances, is characterized by a unique complexity and an unsettling ambiguity. The historian Raul Hilberg’s “triptych” defines the “actors” caught up in the Holocaust as belonging to one of three categories: perpetrator, victim, and bystander. As Hilberg knew, his categories were neither discrete nor stable. Thus, the elucidation of a “simple” ethical standard of behavior is difficult to define; sometimes it isn’t clear who the perpetrator is.
This chapter examines selected examples of perpetrators in theater plays, beginning with plays about Holocaust perpetrators from the 1960s, such as Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of George Steiner’s The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H., and in Robert Shaw’s The Man in the Glass Booth. Later images of perpetrators are discussed through the examples of Erik Ehn’s Maria Kizito (Rwanda), Catherine Filloux’s Silence of God (Cambodia), Colleen Wagner’s The Monument (Bosnia), and Hanoch Levin’s Murder (Israel/Palestine). The chapter concludes with a) an assessment of the artistic difficulties of portraying perpetrators, b) an inquiry into whether their images share common characteristics, and c) a statement of whether the intentions of the playwrights were, or could be, sufficiently achieved.
